


we shall fight in the hills

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [37]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Gen, Historical AU, World War 2 AU, references to canonical abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 20:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13842615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: It’s 1940, and most of Britain’s synths have been sent off to fight in foreign fields. The Elsters remain in hiding, of course. They’re people, after all, not walking weapons.





	we shall fight in the hills

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Week 2, Day 1 of the Humans 4-Week Challenge. The prompt was "Historical AU".
> 
> This fic refers to death, suicide, and abusive situations from the show’s canon, but not in detail.

A siren wailed in the distance, coming from the centre of the town. Mia put down the book she’d been reading, and stood up from her armchair.

“Time to go,” she said softly to Max, tapping his chin to wake him from his charge. One of them always had to stay alert these days, so they didn’t miss the air raid warning. 

Max blinked awake as Mia woke Fred. The two of them started towards the door, aware of the need for urgency. 

“I’ll meet you down there,” Mia said. “I have to wake the others. Where’s Nis?” 

Neither of her brothers knew. Mia decided to rouse Leo and David first, and hopefully find Niska on the way back. She headed for the staircase, though the siren was growing in volume now. Perhaps she wouldn’t need to wake them, but Leo wasn’t fast on his feet again yet, and would still need her help. 

The life of seclusion they’d led before the war had ended up being an advantage. All operating licenses were revoked from the first of January, 1940, on the understanding that all available synths would be turned over for military reconditioning. A few corporations were given special permission to keep skeleton crews of synthetic workers in their factories, but even this was only granted to industries serving the war effort. There weren’t enough resources to simply build new soldiers anymore. They had to make do with those already in circulation. 

People in the area had known, of course, about Beatrice’s nurses, because they’d often been seen in the town, fetching her medicine or, on her brighter days, accompanying her to sit by the lake. David had never given them consciousness, even after Beatrice’s death, so there was no reason for them to stay hidden in the grounds - they continued to run their owner’s errands. Thus, when the SCS came to collect the two nurses, they were handed over, walking unquestioningly into their new assignment. Their memory banks would be wiped. They would defend the land on which they’d been manufactured, and probably be destroyed in the process. If it meant saving the life of a human soldier, it was worth the loss of a machine. That was what the posters said. That was what everyone said. 

For the other synths, David’s ‘Children’, as he called them, it was a different matter entirely. They had to be even more careful now - no-one must ever see them, lest they be reported to the SCS and confiscated, like the property they supposedly were. Leo, who had only recently learned to walk again, did not officially exist either. There was a grave next to his mother’s with his name on it. As far as the outside world was aware, David Elster lived alone in the house, nursing his grief, and drawing up designs to augment the synthetic soldiers as much as could be managed. Nobody knew he shared his home - and, by extension, his air raid shelter - with five other thinking, feeling beings. 

The siren had reached full volume by the time Mia reached the wing where Leo and David slept, and her father was already coming out of his room.

“Mia,” he said with some alarm, as if he was - for some reason - surprised to see her inside the house she was a prisoner in. He pulled his bedroom door quickly shut behind him. 

“I came for Leo,” Mia explained. “He’s not good with the stairs.” 

“Of course,” said David, nodding. “Of course, thank you. I’ll see you at the shelter.” 

They passed each other, and Mia made her way to the bedroom at the end of the hall. She knocked on the door, just a tap to warn him before she opened it. “Leo?” 

He had almost managed to cross the room alone, and she took a couple of steps to join him, letting him lean on her to speed up his gait. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I was faster than this earlier.” 

Mia drew the door closed behind them. “It’s alright,” she assured him. “You are faster, you’re just groggy because it’s the middle of the night, and you can’t have charged fully. If it wasn’t for the siren I’d tell you not to rush until you’d built up some energy.” 

“If it wasn’t for the siren we wouldn’t need to move at all,” Leo observed. 

“Good point,” said Mia, with a smile. 

They shuffled along the corridor as quickly as they could, and Mia could hear from his breathing how much it was taking out of him. Leo’s muscles had undergone a certain amount of atrophy while David had been working on his brain, and the strength of a healthy thirteen-year-old boy had not yet returned to him. Rationing was slowing things down even more, on that front - David was only allowed to collect the amount of protein deemed adequate to keep one adult man alive. Sharing that between the two of them wasn’t exactly conducive to a speedy recovery.

Thankfully, Leo was fairly resilient. With time, he would improve further. And if there was anything they had going spare, cooped up in the house day after day, it was time. 

He and Mia reached the top of the stairs, ready to begin a shaky descent. The siren was still plainly audible, reminding them of the need for haste. 

“I know you can go down on your own, but I think you should let me carry you,” Mia said, apologetic but firm. “It’ll be safer, just this once.” 

She had a feeling she would have to renew the 'just this once’ a few times before he could make it out for a raid alone, but there didn’t seem much point telling him that now. Leo nodded, and let her take him down the stairs in her arms, his head resting on her shoulder. By the time they were halfway down, he’d spotted Niska coming through the hall, approaching the stairs herself.

“Niska?” he asked, confusion blurring his voice further than tiredness had already done. 

Carefully Mia turned her head to glance up at her sister, curious. Sure enough, Niska was there, looking for all the world as if she’d come from David’s wing of the house. It seemed a strange time for her to have been lurking there, but Mia decided not to ask about it just now - it was more important that they reached the shelter. 

“Hurry, Niska,” she said instead, and carried on down the stairs. She didn’t stop to set Leo on his feet, even when she reached the bottom. They had delayed long enough already. Niska followed Mia through the house, through the back door and down the stone steps that led to the main lawn. They scurried across it, headed for small door set into the slope of the grass. 

Mia pulled open the door and Niska climbed down into the shelter, waiting in the doorway to help Leo as Mia lowered him in after her. In a few short moments, they were all inside, and Mia pulled the door shut. The metallic clang was loud, but that was nothing compared to the noise that came shortly after - the roar of aircraft overhead, and then the distant whistling of the first bombs falling. 

Mia drew Leo close to her, holding him as tightly as she dared. They’d only just made it. True, the actual bombing was taking place some distance away, judging by the quality of the sound, but it could so easily have been closer. If she’d let him walk the rest of the way, and if one pilot had flown a slightly different course… 

It didn’t bear thinking about, so she cancelled the code. She looked around the darkened bunker, her eyes easily picking out Max and Fred. David was holding a torch, which cast strange shadows on his face. He’d brought a book with him, and seemed content to wait out the raid in his corner, barely acknowledging that the others had arrived. 

Mia’s gaze flitted away from him and rested on Niska, who was looking frightened, haunted even. Mia unfurled one of her arms from around Leo and used it to draw her sister towards her, her hand staying on Niska’s back once she was close. Mia wondered what she ought to say to reassure her. She, Mia, was the oldest of them all, and Fred was not far behind her - the two of them were not easily shaken by the realities of the war going on around them, and Max and Leo were too young to fully understand most of it. Niska was caught in the middle, it seemed, able to comprehend the atrocities but not yet disengaging from them. She was only two years old, after all. Mia didn’t blame her for being scared. 

Which was why she was taken aback when Niska said, suddenly, “I think it’s wrong that we’re hiding down here.” 

“Why?” asked Fred, from the opposite wall. 

“The other synthetics are being forced to fight,” Niska said, her voice cold. “Because they’re faster and stronger, and they don’t question their orders. If they don’t have a choice, it’s not fair that we’re exempt.” 

“It’s not because they’re faster,” said Fred. “It’s because they’re expendable. They’re just seen as weapons.” 

“Weapons that can walk themselves into battle, not endangering human life,” Mia continued. “Millions died in the last war. The number will be lower, this time.” 

“Try not to worry about it, Niska,” Fred said, sad but resigned. “They don’t know they’re in danger. They’re not suffering, even if we think it’s unjust.” 

“They’re not suffering because they can’t think for themselves,” said Niska. “Wouldn’t at least some of them be better off, if we were among them? We could protect them, and only follow orders if they made tactical sense. The other soldiers don’t know the difference, they just go where they’re told. We’d stand a better chance.”

“You can’t join the army!” Leo blurted out, turning his face so he was looking all but blindly towards where Niska was standing. In the darkness, his voice sounded very small and scared. “You can’t. You’re people.” 

“I know,” said Niska. “Being a person means I can make my own choices. What’s to stop me choosing to hand myself over to Conscription?” 

“Us,” said Mia, firmly. “We can’t let you go. You’re our sister, and you’ll get yourself killed.” 

“It would never work, anyway,” Fred added. “They give every synth they collect a complete overhaul. They’d see your root code’s a totally different structure to the rest, and they’d wipe you out. Even your memory banks. You might survive the war, but it wouldn’t be because you were intelligent. It would be luck. You’d have the same chances as the rest of them, and you wouldn’t even remember being anything but a soldier.” 

Something about the way he spoke implied that he’d thought this through before, and at some length. Mia wondered if he’d seriously thought about turning himself in to the Synthetic Conscription Service, the same as Niska was doing now. Maybe, those nights when he’d cut himself off from the rest of them after the incident with the fox, he’d been grappling with the idea of doing exactly that. Mia immediately regretted advising Max and the others to give him space. Perhaps he had needed the opposite. 

Niska seemed to be considering his words. When her voice returned, it was quieter. Still determined, but much less confrontational. 

“I can’t stay here forever,” she said. “Maybe it’s different for the rest of you, but there’s only so much I can take.” 

The bombs continued to fall, far above them, but the silence in the shelter was acute. It hung in the air, like a giant spider’s web that would entangle anyone who tried to dissipate it. What answer could they possibly give? Anything they said would only round out Niska’s reasoning further, as she forced herself to come up with another defence. The last thing they wanted was to strengthen her conviction. 

They waited there together, listening for the all-clear. A small, illogical part of Mia’s mind hoped it would never come, if it would only mean her sister was trapped there in the shelter with them, plotting an escape she’d never get to carry out. 

At least until daybreak, she could pretend it was true.


End file.
